Behind bars

"A thief belongs in prison." It's a quote from a classic Soviet crime thriller that past and future President Vladimir Putin once used to express what he thought of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Outgoing President Dmitry Medvedev's view of the situation is hardly any different: His top rights adviser Mikhail Fedotov said Medvedev had rejected a pardon for the former oligarch - who now looks set to stay behind bars for another four years.

In March, Medvedev unexpectedly ordered prosecutors to review the Khodorkovsky case.

"The prosecutors are like chained dogs, following the orders of their master," Khodorkovsky's lawyer Yuri Schmidt told DW. Schmidt doesn't expect any new investigation to find irregularities in the court proceedings against the former head of the now defunct oil company Yukos and his former colleague Platon Lebedev.

No surprises

The Khodorkovsky case is one of some 30 court cases that Medvedev ordered to be reviewed. The four-week investigation officially wrapped up last Sunday, yet no official results have been published so far.

According to Russian media reports though, the two men who'd been sentenced on fraud charges to 13 years in prison will remain behind bars.

Vadim Klyuvgant, another of Khodorkovsky's lawyers, also doesn't expect the prosecution to criticize the sentence. "It would be naive to think that the same prosecution that for eight years has condemned Yukos would now admit to its own mistakes."

"No reason for a pardon"

Mikhail Fedotov is not naive. The 62-year old is an experienced lawyer and politician. He heads the human rights council advising the Russian president. In December 2011, he presented Medvedev with an international experts' opinion that suggested the Khodorkovsky trial had been substantially flawed.

Yet it seems the prosecution is not taking that line. For Medvedev, there will therefore be little reason to question verdict or sentence.

In a recent newspaper article, Fedotov wrote that Medvedev saw no grounds to pardon someone who hasn't actually asked for it. Both Medvedev and Putin have repeatedly said they'd we willing to look into the sentence if only Khodorkovsky and Lebedev would ask for it. But that's what the two former Yukos managers refuse to do, as asking for a pardon would technically require an admission of guilt.

However, in March the human rights advisory council itself decided that Khodorkovsky did not have to admit his guilt in order to win his release. Even so, there is little hope that Medvedev will make any efforts towards releasing Khodorkovsky: "The president disagrees with this opinion," Fedotov told Moscow Echo radio.

Human rights activists call on Medvedev

Russian human rights activists like Sergei Kovalev are convinced that Khodorkovsky's fate is in the hands of incoming President Vladimir Putin. "I am sure that Putin sees Khodorkovsky as a personal enemy," he says and recalls a public debate from 2003 where Khodorkovsky publicly accused Russia's ruling elite of corruption.

Half a year later, Russia's then richest man was arrested and put on trial. "As long as Putin remains in power, Khodorkovsky is to remain locked up," Kovalev says.

The head of the Moscow Helsinki group, Lyudmila Alexeyeva, is still cautiously optimistic. "Hope dies last," she says. Alexeyeva and her colleagues are trying to raise the pressure on Medvedev to pardon political prisoners. Khodorkovsky and Lebedev are also on their list.

"An act of mercy would be a good way to end your presidency and you would go down in history as a generous man," says their appeal to Medvedev.

Author: Roman Goncharenko / ai
Editor: Simon Bone